I've thought it over now. Vincent did some bad things, there's no doubt about it. Turks kidnap, steal, murder. He probably did all those those too, like Reno and Rude likely have. At this point in time he was a real "Clavis Shephard" - an S.Ops character who dealt with guilt by not dealing with it and did as he was ordered. Vincent now lives with the backlash of being that, he's a very different person, but those actions are still his to own up to and he does. Pasts aren't changeable, but...
if a person is willing to claim their past “This was my list of choices, they were the wrong choices” then there’s hope for redemption within them, which is something Vincent and other FFVII cast want. They want to be forgiven for their past. The angles they seem to take though range from self-punishment to trying to be a better person in the present, or both. Vincent doesn’t want to be seen as a victim I believe, since he likely did worse to others than what Hojo did to him. He’s honest.
And I think that honesty is what separates Vincent from the role of being a full villain. A villain isn’t honest with them self, they think they’re exempt from sin, that it’s okay because they have a better plan for the future. Better than anyone else can understand in the present. Vincent is an immortal so an endless future could be seen as no future, no far away fantasy to tell himself “my actions were just” and so on. He’s too self aware for that. I think that makes him more of a realist.
[ replied from here ]
[ as a response to this ]
First of all, I’m thrilled that you wrote so much to me. :D
But my question was more about whether you feel that Vincent regretting his past, seeking redemption for his past, or any other aspect of Vincent forgives the crimes he committed in the past. Which likely included murder.
Or do you fully embrace your fandom for Vincent without trying to excuse away or forgive the bad things he did? When you think about what a great character Vincent Valentine is, do you forget about the kidnapping, stealing, and murdering parts (or attempt to justify or forgive them) to avoid cognitive dissonance? Or do you think, “Wow, this former hitman who’s trying to save the world is such an intriguing character because he did all these terrible things and I enjoy watching his struggle to reconcile with that even though it’s definitely not an excusable problem”?
I think we can all agree that Vincent's character arc is one of seeking redemption. Hell, in case we overlooked it, they named the theme song of his sequel “Redemption.” But rather than spending any time trying to justify what separates Vincent from a villain—and one has to wonder why that distinction needs to be made at all—why not embrace the conflicting totality of the character?
Hell, let’s just ask that one outright: Why do we feel the need to make distinctions between our heroes and the villains? Why do we seem to believe there are two camps that people can fall into—“hero” or “villain”—and we must explain why characters fall into the former category before expressing how much we like them?
